Last week was given over to the First Round of the Annual Times and Directory Handicap Cup competition with seven of the New Milton Table Tennis Club’s teams in action. Four of the teams booked their passage to Round 2, one of those wins coming at the expense of one of their own teams in a local derby.

The derby saw the F team (Steve Cheesman, Malcolm Nash & Sylvia Smith) from Div 3 come up with a 5-4 victory over their club mates in the L team (Stuart Burton, Maggie Brown & James Harper) who usually play in Div 5. It wasn’t as close as the scoreline suggests as the F’s had it in the bag at 5-2 thanks to two wins apiece from Cheesman and Smith and one from Captain Nash. Captain Burton and fourteen year old Harper had replied for the L’s and went on to win their last matches to embellish the final scoreline.

The A team (Umit Kaya, Russell Wilson & Steve Hemmings) are two places above Merton B in the Premier so the result went with the form book as Milton won 5-1 home at Mudeford Wood. Kaya and Wilson (pictured below) won both their matches and Captain Hemmings clinched it by beating Merton’s Clayton Fitzpatrick having lost to veteran Danny Allen in the visitors’ only victory.

The C team (Frank Handy, Paul Iliffe & Andy Tipsana) from Div 1 beat Div 2 leaders Winton YMCA C 5-2 home at the Grange aided and abetted by an excellent hat-trick from Iliffe.

Division 4’s H team (Dave Sutton, Lewis Reading & Les Smith) will not be able to defend their Times and Directory Plate title as they progress to the next round of the cup proper after hammering Shamrock B (Div 5) 6-0.

The losing D, E and L teams live to fight another day however as they join their B and G teams in the consolation “Plate” competition which will be played Week Commencing 9^th January 2017. Full results details are below:-

New Milton A (Prem) 5 Merton B (Prem) 1

(Umit Kaya 2, Russell Wilson 2, Steve Hemmings 1)

New Milton C (Div 1) 5 Winton YMCA C (Div 4) 2

(Frank Handy 1, Paul Iliffe 3, Andy Tipsana 1)

New Milton D (Div 2) 0 Merton F (Div 2) 6

(Chris Pusey 0, Terry Jenvey 0, Roy Hobbs 0)

Merton K (Div 4) 5 New Milton E (Div 2) 2

(Peter Daish 0, Simon Daish 1, Simon Golding 1)

New Milton L (Div 5) 4 New Milton F (Div 3) 5

(L Team: Stuart Burton 2, Maggie Brown 0, James Harper 2)

(F Team: Steve Cheesman 2, Malcolm Nash 1, Sylvia Smith 2

New Milton H (Div 4) 6 Shamrock B (Div 5) 0

(Dave Sutton 2, Lewis Reading 2, Les Smith 2)